Michael Opas - [n.d.]

Recuperation

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Hm.

...to stop the diarrhea. And uh, the water from, from the, from, from rice. When you know, when, when they cook rice the water would just--out of the rice, that thick water--this they gave me twice a day. This was my food for about two weeks. And I got weaker and weaker and weaker. I felt "Eh, that's it. Now I already--now already I survived the, the, the, the Nazis, now I will die after all." Well, I figured what--that's my, that's my destination. But the, the, the boys in the room, they were a little healthier than I am--I was. So they begged the doctor to help me, to give me something. He didn't--he wouldn't do it. So they gave me from their food. They felt, felt, "If they don't give you, we will." They got normal, normal food: chicken soup and chicken meat and cookies and bread and everything. So they, they shared with me. They gave me--every, everyone gave me something eat--to eat. And I got some...somehow stronger and stronger and I start gaining weight. After two months I was as normal as I was before, before the war. I even gained too much weight. I was even too heavy already. My feet--my legs start swelling up. I was full of water. I had to sleep with my feet very high. In the barrack naturally, that was, that was the only, the only place we, we--they kept us, in the barracks. But at least I wasn't in danger anymore.

Mm-hm.

I slept with my feet high and, and, and during the day I went in and I got special diet: lemons with sugar. I get, every day I got six lemons with a, a bucket, a bucket of sugar in that. Instead of water to drink--water--I ate lemons with sugar. This was the, this was the only thing to--which helped me. And then they gave us a lot of milk--condensed milk--yeah, in those, those cans, you know. It wasn't, it wasn't a pleasure to eat it, but it was--everything was good after, after what I went through this was...